Hours in Seconds

If time were pain, then my British Literature class would be perpetual torture.   

It's kind of silly because I remember how much I bitched about having to do "10 Definitions and 10 Sentences" in 6th grade.

Then I thought about how easy that little assignment was when I reached High School, spending hours a week with my textbook alone in my little room thinking: "Damn....10 Definitions and Sentences are heaven right now."

And now, woopty doo, now I'm spending hours with my textbook daily.  3-4 hours with the textbook of not just "studying" but intensely studying.  Just knowing the facts isn't all important anymore, I have to actually draw conclusions and make connections with everything I'm learning in order to draw a cohesive illustration of the time period and the attributions from the literary works of the time.   AP Euro is fucking heaven compared to the workload in this coarse. 

Although....

it's kind of strange that a deeper part of me seems to love everything about it.  To the years and dates that nobody gives a shit about, to the poets, the writers, the politics, the struggles, the shifts in society and economics, to the works that we study in depth.

Well gee Kid, maybe you should major in British Literature then you sonuvabitch.  

But it's not that I'm in love with literature.  It's the fact that for once in my damn education I'm forced to think for myself about what I'm learning.  I'm not just learning who died when and who did what.  I'm seeing that every factor counts in the development in everything--how a war or an execution or some kind of drastic change in society changes the course of history and how this affects poetry and literature and the perspective of an artist living during the time.  Until now, I didn't realize how beautiful some writings were written over a fucking thousand years ago.  Sentiments I could only dream of expressing in writing were written by a man who lived in a period where people still threw shit buckets out the window and into a main street.  It's not just history, it's life as it was.  It's life as it is.  In a way, nothing has changed.

Sure, I'm getting a little into depth of what the course entails; but it's more than literature.  It's learning about the subtle works in life that has shaped what we are.  From mathematics to arts to history.


High school does not prepare you for the academia of college.  

High school was for the social experience, I believe, that's just about it.

In just 5 weeks we've covered more information in a year than in any of my classes at Chap, including my oh so dreaded Advanced Placement European History.  But...I never thought I'd be able to do this much work before and not absolutely hate my life.  It's a strange thing...

I think I like this place.

Understanding, Perhaps Is Asking For A Little Too Much

It's weird.

I really don't find any girls attractive at my school. 

It's not that there's a problem with them;

It's just me.

It's just me and my studies.  Me and my work.  Me and my work outs.  Me and...myself.

I talk to myself every morning, every study hour, always.  I'm what I lean on.  I pull creative ideas from opposing sides of the brain.  I rap lines.  I sing songs.  I yank verse, I yank skits, I yank imaginary situations out of everything I find. 

My social life has been destroyed.

But when I do socialize with people, I am far from shy.  I am open and outgoing, comforting and alive; direct and focused, humored and obliged.

The shell was broken in high school.

And now my counter balance has caught up with me.  I lie in solitude, but not unyielding to social opportunity. 

This is ...different.

But in this stage of my life; this is what I need most...

Sometimes Never.

Desire.

Want.  What.  I.  Do.  Not.  Have.

This Moment.  Right now.  

Something.  Someone.  An Idea.  A reality.  A possibility.  A concept.  A precept.  A noun.

Person.  Place.  Thing.  A Noun.

Desire.  

A strong wanting for something.  A yearning.

The feeling that accompanies an unsatisfied state.

What am I without desire..?  I am ...surviving.  I ..continue..  towards..  what?

Can I go anywhere without any wants..?  Can I...be happy?

Happiness.  Contentment.  Fulfillment.

Key:  Fullfillment.

What is fullfillment; the act of filling.

What is filling?

The end of the quest.

The prize to be won.

Key:  Won.

This game, this competition, this race...is one to win.

Win....you have to want...to win.

....................................

So here I am, with precious time on my hands in a wasted away day; soon to be forgotten by the outer consciousnesses of my mind.  Ingrained by undigested recesses of the back of my memory. 

I've fallen in love with an idea again.  I've fallen into a mess.  With each mess getting more difficult to find my way out of.  It makes you wonder, when you sit in the back of your mind in a dim room, asking:  What's the point?

The point....the point...I seemed to have lost my point.  What was it?  What is it?  Didn't I have it just a minute ago?  The point...it was...for certain...for someone...for something....it was...my point.  To live; to sacrifice, to work, to be full.  Where did my point go?  And when can I find it again?

Always the right ideas.  Always the wrong people.
Always the right people.  Always the wrong idea. 

God's little game justified in a sick circle of irony.  It's all irony.  I could laugh about if for months and months until I die from exhaustion.  Peeking through small gaps between His so called "plan,"  I believe I've had my point once again.
Until I blink.
Then I'm lost in the foray in a sudden jolt of sleepiness.  I'm not so awake anymore.  I'm not present.  I'm dead.  Far from breathing.  What is death?  Death Is.  What is life?  Life is... 

Possibility.  
Function.  

Even the dying have both.  But life is dying, and dying is life--so let's put that one in the back burner, shall we?  

What happens when I want to lose grip of this human feeling of "emotion."  Human so to speak, as I've detected no such "emotion" in anything else on this planet.  Do the trees sway in joy?  Or in depression?  Does the wolf eat with sympathy?  Or with deliberate cruelty?

LISTEN TO YOURSELF.

There is no wolf.  There is no sympathy.  There is no love.  There are no trees.  There is no sky, there is no nothing, something, anything.

There is only you.  These words you speak are all that they are.  Words.  Nothing else.  This attempt is futile...what is a tree?

A tree...

You've seen trees.  I'm sure.  But a tree ...is not our tree.  When we say "tree," our lips move to form a series of vibrations and echoes from our larynx.  "Tree" is a sound we make.  We attempt to label that great life with a sound, and a symbol--a representation of something.  "Tree" is representative.


And representatives bring us no closer to the real truth.

"Love."  Human representation of an emotion, a concept, a loyalty, a reason.  A reason for living.

Yet it still remains a representative of what it actually is.  Thereby eliminating possibility to understand it fully.


But where does comprehension come into play then? 

I hate that I don't know.  I'll never be content with not knowing.  I have to know.  I need to know....

I want you to know.


I'm still falling. 

College Oh College.

It's a Monday morning; approx 7:56 A.M.  

I step out of my car.  Lot 26, behind the Track Stadium; within close proximity of the campus of University California Riverside.

I can't believe it.
Yesterday I turned Seven.
Today I'm a working college student. 
First year.  First Day.

It's going to take awhile to reach the populated buildings of campus--the parking lots are quite a bit away.  I see a boy with a messenger backpack and brown scruffy hair begin walking towards the campus, just a few feet from me.  Immediately, I catch up to him and without hesitation, give a friendly "Hey, what's up?"

Our conversation carried through the 13 minute walk to the campus.  His name was David.  He was an interesting fellow; with a heavy accent of some sort and a passion for politics.  As we departed shortly after reaching the campus to go our separate ways, I stopped to take a look around.

Large, complex buildings.  Vast open spaces with trees and green lawns.  A scatter of students making their way towards their early classes.  It wasn't crowded--not yet anyway.

So here I am I guess.  I've left High School behind.  I'm here now.  In this large facility dedicated to the purpose of learning--enhancing one's understanding and knowledge of the world around him/her.  It's a beautiful place.  On the outside, I can feel myself start to shake a little.  Feeling a little overwhelmed.  My God, what am I doing in this place?

But deep down I feel a part of me that is silent.  That never moves.  And that is always centered.  He refers to me as "Kid."  I don't know what to call him--I just listen.  Though he doesn't say anything now, I can feel that he is overjoyed and ready to encounter what this new stage of life has to bring.  I trust him, and feel a little more sure-footed.  I keep walking to find my classes.

My drama class slowly fills up to 90 students.  It's a little intimidating at first--but I find that I really like it.  It's new.  It's refreshing.  What's going to happen next?  The instructor asks for a few volunteers and I feel my hand shoot up.  For some reason my outside isn't so shaky as it used to be.  And my center seems to be taking over more and more as I actually do the things it tells me to do.  With some of my peers, I stand in a line in front of the class, facing the ocean of faces of those who would rather watch the demonstration.  Spotlights overhead illuminate all we are.   I have no idea what's going to happen.  But I stare up, and don't feel so small.  I don't feel scared.  I don't feel nervous as much.  I just feel...happy I think. 

So the drama instructor walks toward an empty student's chair, and stares at us.

The entire room is quiet.

85 pairs of eyes fall on us.

Quiet.

The threat of an awkward tidal wave threatens us. 

I look at the instructor's expression.

She's grinning.

Lightbulb. 

I whisper to the guy next to me:  "Hey, I think we're performing right now." 

So I ask him in a clear voice

 "My name is William!  What's yours?"
"Oh, my name is Aaron.  Nice to meet you."
"Great!  I'm a first year."
"That's awesome."

So I turn to the remaining volunteers who were utterly quiet and ask

"Hey guys!  Have you met Aaron!?"


And so we all proceeded to introduce ourselves--completely forgetting about the audience.

At the end of the "demonstration" our instructor taught that performing is easier when you concentrate --not on the audience, but the relationships and the scene itself with the other actors.  We had passed her little "test."  Damn, this place was interesting.

I walk out of my Drama class--time flew by--as I would learn later.  All my lectures flew by.  It was nothing like high school--where periods would drag on--seemingly forever.  In this place, lectures were intriguing.  And they all seemed so short--despite that they usually lasted at least an hour. 

I reach one of the main central areas of the campus.  And take a look around.

Teens, students, everywhere.  Walking to places.  Running to places.  Biking to places.  Skateboarding, rollerblading.  Everywhere, everyone was headed somewhere.  There were literally thousands of people all over the campus.  It was an eternal "passing period" in this place.  When students got to their classes, new ones would come out of old ones, and be making their way to the next.  People making their way to the cafeteria with friends.  Individuals finding empty tables to do some reading.  People on benches with laptops, scanning for some quick information.  Sorority sisters walking in groups, tall guys with tattoos smoking at the entrances of the library, a boyfriend and girlfriend having an animate conversation about a party last week passing by.  A band begins to play at the bell tower.  A scattered 30 sit to watch them while some others start dancing in the front.  Bike racks are everywhere on this campus--and they always seem so full.  Everyone, each with their own story--making their way to their next progression.  It's the Sims here.  It's the Sims on a gargantuan scale.  Everyone is busy doing something.

Damn I'm starving. 

I stop a guy in mid-stride and ask him where a good place to eat would be.  He gives his opinions, his directions, and finally says "The cheapest place to eat though is off campus."  I find out later that just about everyone on this campus is friendly and open.  Not like the scattered douche bags from High School.  They know why they're here, they're motivated, they're ambitious, and they're not afraid to help a fellow student out.   I spend the break between my next classes at Taco Bell.   Just a short drive away.  So I'm eating my tacos, studying the map of the campus, and it hits me.

Wow....it's all me.  Just here.  Completely self-directed.  Doing whatever the hell I want.  This is...weird--but in the best way possible.  

  I find myself filing into a crowded lecture hall--a lecture for British Literature.  It's a room that can hold probably about 300-400 students.  I see an empty seat and ask the girl adjacent to it if anyone was going to sit there.  With the A-Okay, I sat down and busted some note-taking utensils out.  The lecture would start in about 5 minutes.  So there was down time to fill up.  I turn toward the girl next to me and ask:

"Hey what's up?"
"Erhm, nothing much haha."

I realize if I'm going to make friends here I have to open up.  But it's so easy here.  Talking to "strangers."  We're all here for the same reason.  And we are all connected in that way.  It's easy to relate.  And I'm so glad I'm not the nervous wreck I was the first 3 years of high school.  I'm so thankful that in the last year, I at least acquired the confidence to talk to anyone without tearing myself down. Dammit High  School, I'll never forget how you helped me. 

As the lecture proceeded, I noticed some students with laptops in the mid-rows.  Some taking notes.  Other's on completely irrelevant websites.  Others on facebook.  Sometimes during the lecture, people would leave.  Other times, people would just arrive.  I quickly concluded that:

It didn't matter whatever the hell you did during the lecture.  You can be late, or early, or just leave whenever you wanted to.  You could put your head down and sleep--and nobody would care.  This lecture was for you.  And if you didn't want to pay attention--hell, you didn't have to.  Don't want to take notes?  Hell, just sit back, relax, and just watch!   It was this freedom that made the lecture that much more engaging.  The fact that I had a choice made the positive choice much more fulfilling--as I felt.  This is what education was truly about.  About WANTING to find out more.  And not being forced through a tunnel that shoved information down your throat.  This place had so much more leeway, so much vast openness, that it felt wonderful learning.  It felt good listening to what the instructor had to say.  It felt good calling the shots.  And to know that you are only 1 in 400 in the class, sharing this same awesome atmosphere. 

A 50 minute drive back to Temecula, and I find myself at work.  It's 6:30PM, and I'm closing to 10PM.

I'm on the road of education, and I'm making money on the side.  

There's no time to question my worth now.
There's simply no time to be miserable.
There's only just time.

And all the space in between is that much more meaningful.

When Least Expected...Clouds Connected.

Enlisted; by fears and phantoms from past anxiety. 
The smell of desperation; the edge of uncertainty; the black smoke evanescent.
The army, drunk with confusion.  

How can I think?  When I'm not sure how to think?

Splintered visions of vanity flood my dreams on all fronts.  Isolated, I fight to find ground.  But I question every second of the journey.  Do I search for the chicken?  Or do I search for the egg?  Do I waste valuable seconds on the clock wondering what to search for?  Need I take drastic action now?  There is no strategy for this unknown enemy.  Yet it closes in, ever silently and restlessly.  The impending threat to my life's meaning....


----------I blink. 

I am driving a 2001 Ford Mustang on the 15 North.  The light hum of the engine soothes the senses.
The highway is always so beautiful.  There is no question of where to go.  There is one way.  Different cars, models, colors, sizes, shapes, ages, all headed to different destinations, yet all travel the same road.  They coexist in a benevolent invention of man, but the invention itself proves an analogy to the greater picture.    At speeds of deathly capability, we, the engines, travel in harmony.  Death threatens at any second or mistake.  Yet rare is it that metal would ever touch metal in this vile format of what could-be.

I sink back in my seat and enjoy the peace.

I know where I am going.  I know not where others are headed, but I share the same concrete with them.  Risk between life and death teeters at constant; but I worry not.  I control this steel.  I control my fate.  I am independent; in control.  If I die now, it is by my own conscience, and it is by my own doing.  At this concept, I take great comfort in.

Perhaps...life is a highway.  I cannot stop this car.  To stop, is to die.  I must continue onward, and take the exits I believe will take me to my destination. 

Every exit is an entrance to somewhere.

This highway...could lead me as far as New York, or as close to a loved one's home.  This highway, branches off to any destination I would ever intend to travel. 

It doesn't matter where I start.

...it's all connected.

To Be.

Me.

I.


I am not a student.
I am not a worker. 
I am not a punk.
I am not a guitarist. 
I am not an Asian boy.
I am not desperate.  
I am not hungry.
I am not intelligent.
I am not clueless. 

I am, I am.

I am awareness.  I am frequent, constant, limitless awareness.  I am the presence of mind.  I am awareness.


I am a fluctuation of thoughts and emotions. 

I am constantly shifting.
I am constantly wanting.
I am constantly learning. 

I am everything.  I am nothing.  I am in between. 

I can't figure myself out, because there's nothing to figure out.

There is no self.  There is only....now.  The now.  Forget yesterday and tomorrow.
  There is what's happening right now.
This exactly, lethal moment.

When was the last time you were present?  

Truly present?

Death's in The Family.

Here now.  Sitting.  Sit.  Sat.  Back then.  Was.  When.

Watching television with my cousins.

Phone rings.
Automatically answer.
Second nature.
My instant robotic inquiry of a friendly:

"Hello?"

I am greeted by sobbing.  Sudden, incoherent words, spluttering out of the receiver.  My ears strain to make sense of what is now taking place.

Here now.  Listening.  Listened.  Listen.  Back then.  Was.  When.

"Anna?"  I ask, now alarmed; concerned, fearful, stricken.
"--Will"  I make out from the sobs.  I listen as she attempts feebly to control her voice between the chocking tears.
"Yes?! What is it?"  I ask.  Reality threatens to bring a blow.  Tragedy drips from the static. 
"Aunti Susie--is dead!"

"WHAT!?"

  Without meaning, I sit up.  Eyes focused, looking past the solid reality in front of me.  Confused, fearful, shocked, rejecting.  The word is reflexive.  I dare not believe the words I hear.  There must be a mistake.  I did not hear it correctly.  I am at fault.  The message is wrong.  The message cannot fit with this reality.  The message cannot fit with my reality.  And so my senses snap and spit back the message in an instance, as automatic as a flinch; a wince.

The question:  "What?" 

My aunt had died.  In a biking accident.  She was struck by a vehicle.  

That lovely woman died.   The image of her smile, broke down like shattered glass.  The associated feeling of hope and joy after a terrible day, fluttered silently away.  My aunt, whose laugh was the loudest at family social gatherings, whose humor never faltered to trigger contagious smiles, who was simply there.  She was there.  Christmas, Thanksgiving, Funerals, Birthdays--she was there.  All the time.

But no, that can't be, you see.  

She's always at the family gatherings.  Get-togethers.  She plays a large part.  She's always there with something bright to say.  She's always there to hug in greetings and leavings.  She's always there.  Always.

How can I hold my view of the world, if those concepts that made up that view--cease to exist?

  How can I understand what night and day are, if their very means of existing are suddenly pulled out from under me?

How can she just....be gone.  

My father sat down with my Grandma.  Slowly, meaningfully, to tell her the awful news.  Seconds before, I had watched my Grandma, hugging everyone--aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, son-in-laws--the family-- that had driven to our house.  All our family was there.  Hugging Grandma.  She didn't know yet... She was so happy.  She didn't ask why they were there.  She didn't care why they were there.  She was just happy to see them visit.    My father sat her down...  Everyone went quiet.  Dreading.  I leaned back against a wall with folded arms.  Feeling guilty for what I was about to witness.  I knew I should have looked away, or looked down at the ground.  Or leave the room.  Anything.  But I couldn't take my eyes off of my Grandma, who was about to receive the news that her beloved daughter had died.

With calm control, my father said clearly and objectively to her:

"This morning..."

I studied to see my Grandma's smile slowly fade to an expression of curiosity.... leaving room for a small thought-- that perhaps this wasn't such a happy visit afterall...

"...Susie Died."

A fist gripped my insides as I watched her old wrinkled face shrivel to a cry.  Her words of disbelief.  My father's confirmation.  She cupped her small hands to her face as I froze to listen to her dry sobs.  Her dry tears.

She was too old to experience this.  She was too old to feel such hurt.

It must be the worst thing in the world.  To have to bury your children. 

Fate is sick.

I walked inside, chest hurting from such an overwhelming flood of emotions.  Of what cruel reality it is to be a human being, and to feel such empathy, compassion, and understanding in so many perspectives and degrees at once.

I realized then that it wasn't just my aunt who had died.

My grandmother lost her daughter.
My father lost his sister.
Her friends lost their friend.

And our family lost a light.

I sat at the kitchen table in painful recognition of this.  At the peak of understanding, finally the gates had given in to the pressure--and I had begun to break down for the first time since hearing the news.  I did not feel hollow inside.  I did not feel anything gripping my insides.  I only felt pain.

Pain.  Unquenchable, unforgiving, immeasurable pain.  A pain that quickly destroyed reason.  A pain that quickly destroyed thought.  A body's odd retaliation to pump out salt water from tear ducts.  A pain that shook the body.  A pain that shook everything I was.  I was pain itself.  And in that instance of a depthless agony I had fallen into, I slowly crept closer to what it meant to be here;

Now.  Sitting.  Sit.  As I sat.  Back then.  What was.  When. 

I felt alive.  Human.  At peace.  At edge.  At a loving, hateful vantage point where I could see everything for what it was.  With no bias.  With no hesitation.  I felt the loss of life; and felt the value of what it was to be alive. 

How unpredictably, life can just pull things out from under you.  How it can take away all that you know, and leave you wondering if you ever knew anything in the first place.  Leaving you scared, lost, confused.

But it is by this act that life does us the most justice.  It is through the pain and heartache that we feel whole.  It is by getting sucked into the hole that we may ever truly begin to look up.  To just look up and see that everything is brighter than we had thought.   It was the darkness that clenched me that allowed for the stars to shine bright.

Life may bring darkness in this life,
But it is darkness that brings out the stars;
and all the hope their light brings. 

Rest in peace my wonderful Aunt Susie.

I will never forget the light you brought me. Both in life, and death.